Month: August 2004

Russian Alien Spaceship Claims Raise Eyebrows, Skepticism

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Russian Alien Spaceship Claims Raise Eyebrows, Skepticism

An expedition of Russian researchers claims to have found evidence that an alien spaceship had something to do with a huge explosion over Siberia in 1908. Experts in asteroids and comets have long said the massive blast was caused by a space rock.

The new ET claim is “a rather stupid hoax,” one scientist said today. And it’s one with a rich history.

Another Government Cover-Up, I tell ya!

The Book of Go

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I finished reading The Book of Go last night, which isn’t to say I’m doing with it, as there are a lot of Go problems that I’d like to go back and work through again in a while.

The book comes in a unique format: spiral bound and including 9×9 and 13×13 Go boards and the pieces to play. And it provides a nice overview of the game, but really it often left me either scratching my head or thirsting for more. I still am a bit confused by scoring and how to deal with ‘dead pieces.’ The suggestion is to keep playing if there’s a dispute over whether a piece is dead, but it seems to me that you can force the other player to give up terrain that way. I would’ve like to have that explained in more depth (and that’s just one example…there were a few concepts that I thought were dealt with a bit too briefly).

Of a more personal nature is a problem with how the game is taught. The author begins by teaching “First Capture Go” which is a kind of sub-set of the full game. This is great if you have someone to play with, but in my case I was playing against a computer program or via various internet sites, none of which supported this variation of the game. I’m sure this is a great way to teach, *if* the reader has a friend who is also trying to learn the game.

It would’ve been ideal to include a CD-ROM with a version of “First Capture Go” for readers to practice against. The cd could’ve also included some of the excellent open source Go products on the net.

Still, as an introduction to Go, the book succeeds; by the time you’re finished with it you’ll probably have either decided that Go isn’t the game for you, or you’ll be ready for a more in-depth book.

The Color of Mayhem, in a Wave of ‘Urban’ Games

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The Color of Mayhem, in a Wave of ‘Urban’ Games (this’ll be behind a registration in a day or so).

I should start by noting that I am white.

But Esther Iverem, editor and film critic for www.seeingblack.com, a Washington-based Web site offering black opinion on cultural and political matters, said she worried about the effects of games like earlier versions of Grand Theft Auto on black youngsters, including her 11-year-old son. “These games don’t teach them anything about respect, tolerance and responsibility,” Ms. Iverem said, but are instead “validating a much-too-accepted stereotype, an accepted caricature.”

I certainly agree with Ms Iverem, but I don’t see it having anything to do with race. The protagonist of these games, who is an evil, brutal scumbag, is white, after all.

The article faults some games for having black enemies, others for having black protagonists, and still others for having black athletes.

So I wonder in what capacity they’d like to see people of color in these games? It seems to me game developers are in a no-win situation. If they make all characters white, then they’re being prejudiced. If they put black characters in the games, then they’re promoting stereotypes because the characters are doing violent things or playing sports.

But all the games they mention are either violent or sports games. The NBA Street game they mention features superstar basketball players, many of whom happen to be black. As to the violent games…THEY’RE VIOLENT GAMES. If you want to fault them for that, sure, I’m with you. But to say they promote stereotypes that black people are violent is ludicrous. Everyone in these games is violent, regardless of color!

I’m just not getting the arguments here. .. can anyone explain it?

Doc Sidhe

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I finished Doc Sidhe, by Aaron Allston, tonight. It was a fun ‘pulp fiction’ kind of story. A down-on-his-luck kickboxer gets transported to the FaeWorld (my term, not his) and he and his girlfriend get embroiled in a battle against an evil madman. The other world is whimsical but believable; people there are poisoned/burned by the touch of iron or steel, so most of their technology is based on copper and so forth, which has retarded their technological growth when compared to ours (they call our world the grimworld). But they have magic, so you end up with almost a steam-punk kind of land, but not so gritty as what you might think of when you think of steampunk.

Anyway, the book won’t win any awards for Classic Fiction or The Great American Novel, but it was a darned fun read and an imaginative enough story. And though I’ve linked to it at Amazon, you can d/l it for free (or read it online) at Baen’s Free Library. I read the whole thing on my PDA while waiting in lines or during solo meals and what not. Not a bad way to pass some time.

Newsreader news

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Because I’m nothing if not fickle, I’ve stopped using AmphetaDesk as my newsreader. Yes, I know I raved about it, and I still think its pretty sweet software, and works across operating systems to boot.

But now I’ve become a NewNewsWire Lite fan. Its Mac OS X only though. But its still free, and it offers both a traditional 3-pane view of your feeds as well as a ‘pop-up’ listing from the dock, a la Slashdock (which is also a great free OS X newsreader, but isn’t really conducive to casual browsing of feeds).

Actually this isn’t as strange a reversal as it might seem, as I liked NetNewsWire a lot when I first tried it, but it costs a fair amount of coin ($40). I never noticed the free “lite” version before (scroll all the way down the page). Thanks to Elaine for pointing it out…

NetNewsWire Lite
(Click for full-sized image)